August 6, 1896] 



NA TURE 



319 



reflection on the science masters. If tlie genius of the schools 

 were something more than classical, if boys could get the same 

 promotion for science that they tlo for classics, the opportunities 

 of the science master would be increased a hundred-fold, and 

 scientific knowledge would become the rule instead of the 

 exception. 



Throughout the article on the position of science at Oxford, 

 I referred to public schools, only once to science masters, and 

 that once in a complimentary sense. It should have been 

 sufficiently clear, in spite of my unguarded sentence, that it was 

 the spirit, the general scheme of education of our public schools, 

 that I was attacking. Mr. Latter's letter justifies my attack. 

 There are points in his letter which I would willingly discuss, 

 but space forbids my entering into them now. As to the 

 ()uestions of Greek and the precedence of chemistry and physics 

 over biology, there is much to he said on both sides. I will only 

 say this: >Ir. Latter is an accomplished zoologist, and his love 

 of his subject perhaps leads him to under-estimate the intense 

 interest which many young boys take in chemical and physical 

 problems. After watching carefully a group of very small boys 

 with whom I have familiar relations, I am convinced that they 

 go after butterflies and fi.shes, not by preference, but because 

 they have this opportunity of satisfying their thirst for natural 

 knowledge, and have not the same opportunities for cultivating 

 chemistry and physics. At any rate, if I oft'er to make hydrogen, 

 or to exhibit an air-pump or an electric battery, the insects are 

 deserted at once. Being a biologist myself, I write without 

 prejudice in favour of the more exact sciences. 



Thk Wrijer oi' THE Article. 



The Salaries of Science Demonstrators. 



I FANCY the incident referred to in the fable quoted by 

 " O. J. L." (p. 27i)must have happened some time ago, possibly 

 when " O. J. L." was a tadpole himself. I am sure he would not 

 think so lightly of our grievances if he fully realised the state of 

 affairs in this pond of late year.s. At one time every tadpole 

 who did good work had a reasonable prospect of developing 

 into a frog on attaining a suitable age. Now there are scores 

 of tadpoles, some of them grey-haired, who attend meetings, and 

 croak to the best of their ability, and read papers bearing the 

 name of some frog as joint author, but who seem fated to end 

 their days in the tadpole stage because they cannot get sufficient 

 food to enable them to develop into frogs. 



This state of affairs is, I take it, largely attributable to the 

 following cause. As all naturalists are aware, our ponds at 

 certain seasons of the year are choked with frog-spawn. Under 

 the old regime this spawn had to take its chance; some got dried 

 up in the sun, and some got washed away by rain, so that only 

 one occasional oz'um here or there hatched. This process of 

 survival of the fittest led to the production of a race of frogs 

 eminently adapted to hold their own in the struggle for existence, 

 and many of these have now acquired world-wide reputations. 

 But Mother Carey, fearing lest any of the eggs that perished 

 might contain the latent germs of some remarkable genius, has 

 carefully tended this frog-spawn and hatched it in a laboratory 

 fitted up with all the most modern incubators and other 

 appliances, and has sometimes even nurtured it with County 

 Council and other scholarships. So far so good. But as soon as 

 the tadpoles are hatched. Mother Carey turns them adrift into our 

 pond to fish for themselves, and takes no more notice of them. 

 The result is that, where we had one tadpole formerly, there are 

 now hundreds, struggling and .starving each other out. Every 

 morsel of fond dropped into our pond (even if it be only a 

 matter of ^60 a year) leads to a terrible scramble, in which the 

 best of us do not always come off first. I consider that we 

 have a genuine grievance against Mother Carey on the ground 

 that, after having devoted so much energy to hatching large 

 numbers of tadpoles annually, she gives so little thought about 

 finding us proper food at the time when we most need it. If we 

 cannot all live on dry land, let us, at any rate, have a fair chance 

 of developing our power of swimming like frogs in the \\'ater. 

 "An Ag(;rieved T.^dpoi.e.'' 



The Date of the Glacial Period. 



Mr. Davison has laid gti>I<>gists under many obligations to 

 him for his mathematical investigations of vexed or obscure 

 questions. His suggestion in the Geological Magazine, that the 

 glacial period would probably have left a long-enduring mark 



NO. 1397, VOL. 54[ 



upon the iso-geotherms, seemed to me, as I dare say it did to 

 other students of glacial geology, a promising one ; and though a 

 comparison, which I made of the gradients in thirty-seven cases 

 within the glaciated area of Britain with sixteen in the un- 

 glaciated portion, failed to reveal any significant difference, still 

 I have been disposed to ascribe the failure rather to the imper- 

 fection of the data than to any fault in the method. When, 

 however, Mr. Davison (Nature, June II, p. 137) extends the 

 application of his formula to a comparison of two hemispheres, 

 the insufficiency of the data is .such as to entirely vitiate any 

 results. 



In the northern hemisphere there were available in 1S85, 

 when Prestwich wrote his memoir published by the Royal 

 Society, 231 series of observations on the temperature of mines, 

 tunnels and bore holes, and it was only by what appeared to 

 be the rather arbitrary elimination of an immense number of the 

 records, that anything like an agreement could be obtained 



What, however, is the body of evidence employed in the 

 determination of the temperature-gradient in the southern hemi- 

 sphere? One bore-hole in New South Wales! Whatever 

 confidence we may feel in the care exercised by the observers, I 

 cannot think that any general conclusions should be based upon 

 this single series of observations. 



There are several well-known bore-holes in the northern 

 hemisphere in which the gradient is as far from the average 

 given by Mr. Davison as is that of the Australian one, and, 

 though various explanations were suggested, none was regarded 

 as satisfactory. If Mr. Davison had referred to the Wheelton 

 bore-hole in the igth and 20th reports of the British Associa- 

 tion Committee on underground temperatures, he would have 

 found there a series of observations, made by a practised 

 physicist, and repeated after an interval of a year under varied 

 conditions, with practically identical results ; yet here the increase 

 of temperature was only /^ F. per yo feet. The St. Louis bore- 

 hole, again, gave an average gradient of 88 feet ; and though the 

 result was regarded as erroneous, it was acknowledged that every 

 care had been exercised, and no specific source of error could be 

 suggested. 



Taking all the circumstances into consideration, I think it 

 will be generally conceded that, interesting as this Australian 

 record may be, it throws no light whatever upon the vexed 

 question of alternate glacial periods in the two hemispheres. 

 Percy F. Kendall. 



Yorkshire College, Leeds, July i6. 



TAXIDERMY AND MODELLING} 



THAT taxidermy has been almost an entirely neglected 

 art is obvious to the least scientific visitor to even 

 the best of our museums, when he regards the "deformed, 

 distorted, and disproportioned " effigies that represent 

 our commonest species. Every means, therefore, be it by 

 example or precept, which will have the effect of impress- 

 ing on the taxidermist the importance of his share in the 

 exposition of natural history, and which will tend to raise 

 what is at present little better than the knack of distend- 

 ing, more or less cleverly, the skins of animals with wool 

 or shavings, to the science and art of where and why to 

 " stuff" and reproduce, and how to pose, will be welcomed 

 by all those who are responsible for instructing, by forms 

 made up to simulate life, those desirous of becoming ac- 

 quainted with the likeness and gait of animals which they 

 have few or no opportunities of observing in a state of 

 nature ; and by those who turn aside to our museums to 

 refresh their spirits with the sight of species which they 

 have learned to love in the fields or in the sea. 



The title of the work which heads this article is from 

 the pen of Mr. Montagu Browne, the Curator of the 

 Leicester Museum. That institution has obtained a con- 

 siderable and deserved reputation for the excellence of 

 many of its mounted groups, birds especially, as examples 

 of the taxidermist's art, prepared by the skilled hands, 



I " Artistic and Scientific Taxidermy and-Modeiling : a Manual of Instruc- 

 tion in the Methods of Preserving and Reproducing the Correct Form of all 

 Natural Objects, including a chapter on the Modelling of Foliage." By 

 Montagu Browne, F.G.S., F 2. S., S:c.. Curator of the Leicester Corpora- 

 tion Museum and Art Gallery; author of " Practical Taxidermy," &c. With 

 22 full-page illustrations, and 11 in text- Pp. xii -f- 463. (London : Adam 

 and Charles Black, 1896.) 



